New post office opens in Clapham with postal and banking services
The branch, located at 82-84 Clapham Park Road, was officially opened by Bell Ribeiro-Addy, MP for Clapham and Brixton Hill.
The new post office offers a modern, open-plan retail environment and is open 56 hours a week.
This new branch will provide a range of services, including bill payment, cash withdrawals, foreign currency, postage, and home shopping collections and returns.
Clapham Park welcomes new post office after closure sparks local campaign. (Image: Post Office) Customers of the main UK banks can also access their accounts at the new branch, restoring banking services to the area.
The branch also features an eye-catching mural on the post office shutters, which can be admired after hours.
The opening of the new post office follows the closure of the directly managed branch at Clapham Common in March 2024.
The premises at 161-163 Clapham High Street were deemed unsustainable due to the need for investment.
The new Clapham Park Road post office is run by a highly experienced and well-regarded postmaster family, the Shahs.
Shah family unveils vibrant new post office with mural tribute to Sox (Image: Post Office)
Krishan Shah, a second-generation postmaster, leads the family, who have been running busy London post offices since 1987.
The branch has four post office counters, one full-screened, two open-plan, and a post office counter alongside the retail counter of the cards and stationery store.
This is large enough to meet the needs of the community.
Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP said: "The closure of Clapham Common Post Office was a real blow to our community.
"The decision to close this busy branch attracted widespread local opposition and triggered a community campaign to protect local postal services.
"I welcome the opening of the new Clapham Park Post Office, which will provide a wide range of services to plug this gap.
"I want to thank postmaster Krishan Shah and his family for their big investment into the new branch, which looks great inside and out with some fantastic artwork on the shutters."
The Clapham Park Road branch offers a wide range of post office services, including driving licence renewals, ID verification, and vehicle tax renewal, excluding passports.
With no banks in the area after four closures in recent years, the branch provides a convenient location for businesses and residents to do their everyday banking and withdraw cash during the post office's opening hours.
Customers can also post letters and parcels, and collect and return online shopping items.
Noah Rai, Post Office Area Change Manager, said: "We're delighted Clapham Park Road Post Office has opened.
"It's operated by a well-respected independent postmaster family.
"With no banks or ATMs in this vicinity, it provides a convenient location for businesses and residents to do their everyday banking and for people to withdraw cash during the Post Office's opening hours.
"It provides a wide range of Post Office services."
The premises were formerly a shisha bar and have been completely refurbished to create spacious, modern premises with new lighting, counters, shelving, and flooring.
The mural on the shutters, an anti-graffiti deterrent, was painted by a professional artist with Post Office-themed artwork, co-designed with the postmaster's wife, Aarti.
It features a black and white cat, similar to Jess from Postman Pat, but it is their oldest cat, called Sox, who is 16 years old.
Krishan Shah said: "We love cats.
"As our family's originally from Kenya, we could have featured big cats, but it tied in nicely to feature our black and white cat in the Post Office-themed mural.
"The community really loves it.
"They admire it when they pass by out of hours.
"It's a real talking point."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Bloomberg
14 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
Nothing Phone Aims to Be Used Less
Smartphone startup Nothing debuts its Phone 3 with a design aimed to get consumers to use it less. Carl Pei, Nothing co-founder and CEO, joins joins Caroline Hyde on "Bloomberg Tech." (Source: Bloomberg)
Yahoo
19 minutes ago
- Yahoo
UK post office scandal may have caused 13 suicides: inquiry
Thirteen people caught up in a faulty accounting software scandal at British Post Office branches may have killed themselves and 59 more contemplated doing so, a public inquiry report published Tuesday said. The Post Office wrongfully prosecuted around 1,000 subpostmasters -- self-employed branch managers -- between 1999 and 2015. Errors in tech giant Fujitsu's Legacy Horizon accounting software incorrectly made it appear that money was missing from their accounts. Many ended up bankrupt after being forced by the Post Office to pay back the missing funds. Some were jailed. Dozens who were later exonerated died without ever seeing their names cleared. Inquiry chair Wyn Williams said that there was a "real possibility" that 13 people killed themselves as a result of their ordeal. Ten people attempted to take their own lives and 59 contemplated it, the report into the scandal found. Many of the prosecutions took place after questions were raised about the software's reliability. Police are investigating possible fraud committed during the scandal. "I am satisfied from the evidence that I have heard that a number of senior, and not-so-senior employees of the Post Office knew or, at the very least should have known, that Legacy Horizon was capable of error," Williams said in the report. "Yet... the Post Office maintained the fiction that its data was always accurate," he added. A "number of senior" people at the Post Office were aware the system was capable of error before it was changed in 2010, he said. - Miscarriage of justice - Welcoming the findings, former branch manager Jo Hamilton said the report showed "the full scale of the horror that they unleashed on us". Williams described the picture of the scandal that had emerged as "profoundly disturbing". "Many thousands of people have suffered serious financial detriment. Many people have inevitably suffered emotional turmoil and significant stress. "Many businesses and homes have been lost. Bankruptcies have occurred, marriage and families have been wrecked," he said. Among those who gave evidence to the inquiry was former Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells who was quizzed about what she knew and when. Vennells broke down in tears when recalling the case of one man who took his own life after being wrongly accused over a £39,000 ($49,537) shortfall at his branch. The long-running saga hit the headlines after the broadcast in January 2024 of a television drama about the managers' ordeal, which generated a wave of sympathy and outrage. Fujitsu's European director Paul Patterson told a parliamentary committee later that the firm, which assisted the Post Office in prosecutions using flawed data from the software, was "truly sorry" for "this appalling miscarriage of justice". Many of those involved are still battling for compensation. The government's Department for Business and Trade (DBT) said last month that 7,569 claims out of the 11,208 received had now been paid, leaving 3,709 still to be settled. Alan Bates, a former branch manager who led the fight for justice, has said the compensation process has "turned into quasi-kangaroo courts". Bates, who was awarded a knighthood by King Charles III for his campaign to highlight the scandal, told the Sunday Times newspaper in May the DBT "sits in judgement of the claims and alters the goal posts as and when it chooses". Post Office Minister Gareth Thomas said last month the government had made it a priority to speed up the delivery of compensation since taking office in July 2024. har/jj/fg
Yahoo
33 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Why HSBC Is Betting Billions on Britain's Rich--Just as They Start to Flee
HSBC Holdings Plc (NYSE:HSBC) is stepping on the gas in its UK wealth business. The bank just opened its first luxury wealth center in London's St. James's, with another 50 rolling out across flagship branches this year. It's not just about fancy lounges and art-decorated roomsHSBC is hiring 200 new bankers to serve everyone from the comfortably affluent to the ultra-wealthy. The goal? Double its UK assets under management to 100 billion by 2028. Christopher Dean, who heads up wealth and personal banking, summed it up: We're going all out. But the timing's tricky. The UK's scrapping of the non-dom tax regime is rattling its wealthy class. Labour's move to tax foreign assets of wealthy residents goes further than previous proposals, and the fallout is already showinghigh-profile names like founder Guillaume Pousaz and Egypt's richest man Nassef Sawiris have reportedly left the UK. Critics argue the policy shift could hurt growth and scare off investment, even as the government bets it could raise 33 billion in new revenue. HSBC isn't ignoring the turbulence. CEO Charles Boulton acknowledged a dip in new arrivalsbut he's not backing down. The opportunity remains, he said. What's driving this bold bet? Stability. Like Goldman Sachs and other global banks, HSBC is leaning deeper into wealth management to reduce earnings volatility. It's a strategy that's worked in Asia, and now the bank's transplanting it to British soil. From revamped lounges in Leeds and Leicester to private events hosted in its St. James's center, HSBC wants to be the go-to hub for UK-based millionaires. And despite the policy headwinds, management still sees Britain as a magnet for high-end financial services. This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
